


Bad Things Bingo: Square by Square

by memorysdaughter



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorysdaughter/pseuds/memorysdaughter
Summary: Filled prompts from Bad Things Happen Bingo.
Relationships: Patterson/Tasha Zapata
Comments: 1
Kudos: 26





	1. Please Don't Leave Me

**Author's Note:**

> You can prompt me on Tumblr - I'm memorysdaughter.
> 
> I write for Blindspot, Critical Role, Umbrella Academy, and The Last of Us. Come help me get a bingo!

“Tasha.”

It’s been a few minutes since Tasha last heard Patterson’s voice. It’s raspy and barely there, coming out with a whistle and a rasp, but it’s like cold water to Tasha’s dry mouth. “Yeah?” she asks, wishing she could still see Patterson’s face. It’s too dark now, meaning night must have fallen, and Tasha can’t shift any further without dislodging any other debris around them.

“Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t,” Tasha promises. “They’re coming for us.”

She touches Patterson’s foot, the only part of Patterson she can reach, and squeezes. “They’ll be here soon.”

“Don’t leave me,” Patterson repeats, though Tasha can hear how hard it is for her to get the words out. “Don’t…”

“Shh,” Tasha says. “Save your strength. I’m right here.”

“Please.”

“Shh, sweetheart,” Tasha says, and she squeezes Patterson’s foot again. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Patterson coughs and Tasha hears a wet wheeze as she breathes back in. “Please. Please don’t…”

“I’m staying,” Tasha promises. She shifts slightly and tries to check her watch. There’s a smear of blood over the face, going down her arm. She shifts again the other way and wipes it against her jeans. When she brings it back up the glowing dial face shows that it’s almost nine-thirty - almost an hour since she was able to get through to the team at SIOC. “They’ll be here soon, Patterson.”

There’s no response, just another clogged wheeze. Tasha reaches forward and holds onto Patterson’s ankle like it’s a life raft and she’s drowning.

Someone  _ has _ to be coming, right?

Patterson tries to keep her eyes open. She’s trying to remember everything that happened. It started with an investigation into one of Jane’s tattoos, which led them to black market sales of potent chemical weapons from a warehouse owned by their chief suspect, a senator; she and Tasha had come to inspect it. Then Tasha yelled something about explosives and there was a bang and a flash and now she’s pinned under a lot of very heavy things and her brain isn’t working quite right and many things hurt and her mouth tastes like blood. She can’t feel certain parts of her body, and she’s terrified the rest of her feeling will disappear as the light in the space around them slides away.

“Don’t… don’t leave,” she begs, even though it makes her chest tight.

“I’m right here,” Tasha says, but her voice sounds far away.

It’s getting hard to breathe. Patterson closes her eyes. “Please,” she gets out, and then coughs. Pain ricochets across her ribs and tears fill her eyes. “Please,” she gasps to Tasha. There’s something wet in her mouth; she turns her head and tries to spit out whatever it is. Something stringy and globby slimes across the side of her face.

“Patterson, sweetheart, stay with me,” Tasha says. “They’re here. I can hear the cars outside.”

Patterson wants to, she  _ really _ wants to, she wants to hear Tasha call her  _ sweetheart _ again, but she can’t breathe anymore and she’s very tired. “Don’t… don’t…” she whispers, and she tries to get the words out, to tell Tasha she’s still here, but there’s nothing, there’s nothing anymore, there’s just Patterson and pain and emptiness and it’s blinding.


	2. Hair Matted with Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can request a square of your own on my Tumblr, memorysdaughter.

Tasha Zapata’s career as an FBI agent has given her what she likes to think of as nerves of steel - throw any disaster, natural or otherwise, at her, and she’ll look for the best path forward without a second thought. She’s endured hostage situations, brutal months undercover, hostile takeovers, terrorist attacks, and wounds from every kind of weapon imaginable with her iron spine intact. She is, in many situations, running on muscle memory and impeccable training.

Now she uses that training to kick open the door to the apartment like she’s done to so many doors in so many places many times before, even though her heart is beating faster than she’d like. She whips her pistol side-to-side, checking the room. Empty.

Tasha moves room-by-room, snapping back the shower curtain and opening the hall closet, looking for an assailant. The apartment is empty, though Tasha’s heart still won’t slow down.

In the hallway she finds Patterson’s phone, smashed by something heavy. Two pieces of art are on the floor as well, frames twisted, glass shattered. Tasha’s muscles threaten to lock up, but she forces herself forward.

“Patterson?” Tasha whispers. Her voice struggles to break out of her throat. She swallows and tries again. “Patterson?”

From the bedroom comes a soft “Huhh….”

Tasha checks the room, moving on instinct, her heart clenched in her chest. There’s no one. She moves towards the closet and yanks the door open.

A blonde body tumbles out onto the floor - Patterson, her hands and feet bound with rope. Her clothes are ripped and a starburst of blood radiates outwards from a wound on her head, glistening in the sunlight streaming into the bedroom. Droplets of blood freckle Patterson’s cheeks; more of it dyes her hair reddish-brown. Tasha kneels down, putting her fingers to Patterson’s pulse. It’s weak and thready.

“Hey,” she whispers. “Open your eyes.”

“Huhh,” Patterson gets out.

“Patterson,” Tasha repeats. She puts her hand to Patterson’s cheek while grabbing her phone from her pocket with the other. “Patterson.”

Patterson’s eyes flicker and she mumbles something at Tasha.

“What?” Tasha asks, still dialing 911.

“Tash,” Patterson breathes.

“I’m here. Just hang on, okay? It’s going to be okay.”

Tasha feels her nerves fraying as she stumbles through the information needed for the ambulance. It’s hard to concentrate with Patterson struggling to remain conscious next to her, and Tasha knows she’s going to crash hard later. For now, though, for now she has to stay strong. _For Patterson._

When the ambulance is on the way Tasha calls Weller. “He got to her,” she says, her throat hard with pain.

“Is she…?”

“She’s still alive. Battered. Going in and out of consciousness.”

“And the…?”

Tasha hurries to cut him off. “I don’t know. We’ll find out when we get to the hospital, I guess.”

“Okay. We’ll meet you there.”

She wants to argue with him, but she can’t. He hangs up and Tasha leans down to kiss Patterson’s head, squeezing Patterson’s hand. “C’mon, sweetheart,” she murmurs. “Stay with me.”

The kiss tastes like rust and iron and pennies, and Tasha gently pries some of Patterson’s blood-stiff hair back from her forehead. “C’mon,” she says, whispering it like a prayer.

“Tash,” Patterson says, and her eyes flicker open for a brief second before closing again.

“P, I need you to stay awake,” Tasha says. “Please. Just… stay with me. Tell me about stars.”

“Stars,” Patterson repeats, and her brow furrows.

Tasha strokes Patterson’s head, not caring about the blood-matted hair under her palm. “Or something else. Anything else. Just keep talking to me.”

“Luna.”

“Luna,” Tasha repeated. “Is that a star?”

“A name,” Patterson says. Her eyes open and she struggles to focus on Tasha’s face.

“It’s a good one,” Tasha says, and she turns her head away before Patterson can see tears filling her eyes. When she looks back, Patterson’s eyes are closed.

The EMTs bang into the room with none of the precision Tasha used when sweeping her own home moments earlier, and immediately set to tending to Patterson.

“She’s my wife,” Tasha says. “Please… please help her.”

“We will, ma’am,” one of the medics says.

“Anything we should know?”

Tasha swallows. “She’s… she’s pregnant.”

Saying it makes it real and scary, and Tasha wants to take it back. The medic, though, seems to take it in stride. “How far along?”

“Eighteen… eighteen weeks,” Tasha stammers.

“Got it.”

Tasha wants to reach out and hold onto Patterson, physically reassure herself that things are going to be all right, but she can’t. She lets the medics do their work, her eyes unable to tear themselves away from Patterson’s bloodied hair.


	3. Passing Out From Pain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Request your own square on my Tumblr: memorysdaughter. I write Critical Role, Blindspot, Umbrella Academy, and The Last of Us, with other fandoms possible. Help me get a bingo!

Patterson opens her eyes. She’s cold,  _ so _ cold. There’s snow under her body and it crunches as she tries to sit up. Pain spears her ribs and she coughs, her body contracting inward. Her breath, twisted by pain and the very act of inhalation, struggles in her lungs. She chokes and hacks, trying to prop herself up on her freezing, shaking hands; globs of stringy mucus fills her mouth and she hurriedly spits them out into the snow, surprised to see blood mingled in with the sputum.

When she can breathe again, she sits back on her heels, every single movement sending rivulets of pain through her body. The ground around her is snowy and none of it looks familiar. It seems like she’s on the side of a road or a trail, as car tracks have packed down the snow in two lines. The road leads up to a forest glade, through which the road rises up and then disappears down a small hill. Next to her there’s a chain-link fence. There’s a surprising amount of… red… snow?

That doesn’t make sense. Snow isn’t red.

Patterson’s head hurts. She tries to stand but her legs won’t hold her. She grabs onto the fence, or tries to - her hands feel like blocks of ice - and yanks herself to her feet.

Pain roars through her from her head to her toes and she cries out. She stays standing but she’s not entirely sure how; her entire body goes limp and she buckles towards the fence, her head slamming into it and her fingers clutching the metal links even harder, hard enough for the fence to slice into her hand. It’s dizzying and horrifying and she wants to close her eyes and sink back to the ground.

_ No. _

She might not know a lot right now, but she knows that cold + being injured + wanting to sleep probably equals at least a concussion and severe hypothermia. She has to get help.

Clinging to the fence, ripping skin from the palms of her right hand as she continually pulls it free in order to grab the next section, Patterson makes her way slowly, so slowly, down the length of the fence. Her stomach throbs, so she presses her left hand against it, shoving her coat up into what feels like some sort of wound.

The fence ends, taking a sharp right angle off into the forest, leaving Patterson clinging to the fence post, looking up the road. The hill sits in front of her. She knows it’s a small rise, but it looks as tall as a mountain. And there’s no guarantee she’ll find help on the other side.

It hurts to breathe. Patterson brings up her hand from her jacket to reposition it and finds her palm smeared with red. It makes her even dizzier.

She lets go of the fence, ripping skin from her palm one last time, and staggers away from it.

One step. A torturous breath in.

One step. Choking breath out.

One step. Legs wobbling, hands throbbing.

One step. The rise grows closer.

One… step. One….. step. Head hurts. Stomach hurts.

One…

She tries to take another step.

One…

She coughs again and spits out more phlegm and blood. 

_ One… _

It’s too much. Her head pounds in time with her throbbing body. She wants to move, she knows she  _ has _ to move, but she’s just… so… tired.

Patterson loses the fight against her suffering body and collapses to the snowy ground.

  
  


When Patterson wakes in the hospital, who knows how long later, Zapata is sleeping with her head on the hospital bed, Jane is sleeping in a comfortable-looking recliner, Weller’s sleeping next to her in an uncomfortable-looking chair, and Reade’s propped upright in the corner with his eyes closed, perhaps dozing.

Lots of things hurt. As Patterson brings up her right hand to try to wake Zapata, she realizes both of her hands are bound in heavy gauze wraps, and when she shifts in bed to lift her arm, something  _ pulls _ on her stomach. She lets out a low moan of pain.

It’s as though her friends were only waiting for her to make noise, because they’re all instantly awake. Zapata’s head jerks up. Weller sits bolt upright and touches Jane’s shoulder. Reade stands up and moves forward.

“Hey, hey, _cariña,”_ Zapata says. “Easy. Try not to move too much.”

Patterson’s figuring that out. Even the slight movements of her body as she shifts in bed are excruciating. “How… how you find…?”

Four words are exhausting.

“Do you remember what happened?” Zapata asks gently.

“No.”

“The doctors said that might happen,” Weller says. “You might remember or you might not.”

“Do you want us to tell you what happened?” Reade asks.

Patterson nods, trying to keep the motion small.

Jane comes forward and gently touches Patterson’s arm. “You were kidnapped by our suspect. He took you to his base, and from what we understand he was… beating you. You tried to escape and he shot you. At some point you managed to get away from him, and you somehow walked about two miles down a back road.”

“You passed out a few times,” Reade says, taking up the story. “The last time you passed out it was in a driveway, and a couple on their way to the post office saw you and brought you in.”

“Oh,” Patterson breathes.

“You needed surgery,” Zapata says. “They just took you off the ventilator yesterday, and we’ve been here waiting for you to wake up.”

“Fingers?” Patterson asks, trying to indicate her wrapped mitts with a movement of her chin. It makes her head throb and she hopes she’s gotten her point across.

“Frostbite,” Reade says. “You had some on your feet too.”

“They saved all your fingers, though,” Weller says with a small smile. “So you’ll be able to type again soon.”

“Not  _ that _ soon,” Zapata says, frowning at Weller before turning back to Patterson. “You need to heal first.”

“Okay,” Patterson says. She’s too tired and too hurt to argue. She moves her hand again, trying to indicate that she wants Zapata to hold it.

Thankfully Zapata immediately gets it, and her hand, with the gentlest pressure, holds up Patterson’s right mitt.

Patterson slides back out of consciousness, this time with much less pain.


	4. Panic Attack (Patterson)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can request your own square on Tumblr: find me as memorysdaughter. Help me get a bingo!

Tasha runs up behind Weller and Jane. “Where is she?”

Jane indicates the wall in front of them - a scarred cement doorway that’s been bricked up. The space and size of the dank hallway they’re standing in suggests that the space behind said doorway is small and narrow, maybe closet-sized. Tasha can’t help but think it seems more like a coffin.

Besides the yelling of the SWAT team members and the other agents securing the property, Tasha can hear a sound she’s familiar with, one she hates: thin, whistly breathing. It’s a hallmark of a Patterson panic attack.

“Hey, _cariña,_ I’m here,” Tasha says, stepping closer to the bricks.

“Tash,” Patterson gets out. Tasha hears tears in her shaky voice.

“I’m right here. They’re going to get you out.”

_ “Tash.” _

“I know it’s dark. It’ll be over soon.”

_ It’ll be over soon. _

Patterson can’t breathe. She’s trying. Her ribs hurt. Her chest hurts.

_ It’ll be over soon - it’ll never be over - they’re going to get you out - no one’s coming for you. _

She can’t feel her hands and she knows that’s because she’s not getting enough oxygen in. Her scientist brain knows it but her fear-flooded body can’t make it happen. She tries to straighten out her panicked body, tries to take another breath, but all she hears is that aching whistle.

_ It’ll be over soon - it’ll never be over. _

The dark walls shrink around her. The ground beneath her feels moldy, mossy, dripping. She tries to breathe in; it seems like the dripping walls fill her mouth - her tongue is somehow dry and sharp with an acrid taste at the same time.

_ They’re going to get you out - no one’s coming for you. _

“I can’t…” She tries to speak. “I can’t…”

The walls come in closer. She closes her eyes. It doesn’t work. Her lungs are screaming.

“No, no, no,” Patterson sobs.

_ It’ll be over soon - it’ll never be over. _

She lurches forward, her muscles taut with anxiety, and slams into the wall. She feels skin scrape away from her forehead and the pain momentarily takes away from the ache in her chest.

Somewhere outside her is a voice. “Patterson, listen.”

“I can’t,” she chokes out.

“You can.” The voice is calming, soothing, familiar.

Patterson brings her hands up to the wall. She needs to feel something besides the pain every time she takes a breath. Her fists slam into the wall. Over. And over. And over. Over. And over. And over.

Her next breath nearly brings her to her knees, squeezes around her chest and pulls tightly. “I can’t,” she sobs.

“It’s okay. Listen to me. Take a breath.”

Patterson breathes in, hears that whistle.

“Bring your head up,” the voice coaches. “Open up your airway.”

She doesn’t know how the voice knows where her head is, but she finds herself following the instruction.

“Good job.” The voice - she knows it - it’s Tasha.

“Tasha,” she breathes.

“It’s me. Unclench your hands,” Tasha coaches.

Patterson finds her fingers spreading out, her fists loosening.

“Deep breath,” Tasha says.

Patterson breathes. The whistle is smaller, the pain receding.

“Good. Good. You’re doing so great,” Tasha says. “Take another deep breath.”

One more breath - it’s less painful, letting her ribs expand. Her hands are tingling. She must be getting more oxygen into her system.

“Okay,” Tasha says, her voice still gentle. “They’ve got the equipment to open up the wall, okay? I need you to step back against the farthest wall, away from the bricks. It’ll be over soon, I promise.”

Patterson lurches backwards, feels the slimy wall behind her press into her back.

“Cover your eyes,” Tasha says.

And she does, bringing her scraped and bloodied hands up as a sledgehammer shatters the bricked-up wall. Chips of stone dig into her face and arms, and she can hear voices, louder and closer to her.

“Let me,” Tasha says, and all of the other voices go quiet.

Patterson slowly brings her arms down, her eyes filled with tears, to see a Tasha-shaped blur move through the opening of the door. “Tash?”

“I’m here,” Tasha says. “You’re okay.”

Arms wrap around her and Patterson leans into Tasha, breathing in her familiar scent.

  
  


Tasha stays with Patterson as the paramedics wrap her hands in gauze and place bandages over her cuts. Jane’s donated sunglasses sit on Patterson’s nose, protecting eyes that hadn’t seen light in a few days.

“You’re here,” Patterson keeps saying, over and over, every few minutes.

And Tasha replies, every time, “I’m here.”


	5. Panic Attack (Zapata)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can request your own square on my Tumblr: memorysdaughter. Help me get a bingo! Right now I write Blindspot, Critical Role, The Umbrella Academy, and The Last Of Us.

When the lights go out Patterson realizes just how fucked they are. She’s freezing; the water leaking into the flooded basement is up to her waist and she still can’t move more than a few inches to either side due to the debris pinning her down. Her left hand stays clasped in Tasha’s right, but she can no longer see Tasha’s face, only hear her voice. Her sad, terrified voice.

“It’s okay, Tasha,” Patterson says, trying to stay calm. “We’ve been in worse situations.”

Tasha clenches Patterson’s hand. “I can’t… we’re… Patterson, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Patterson tells her. “You didn’t know what we were getting into. We’ll be out of here soon.”

At least, she hopes so.

“I didn’t mean to… this is my fault. You’re  _ hurt…” _ Tasha’s breathing picks up and her hand, in Patterson’s, squeezes further. “I can’t get you out.”

“It’s okay,” Patterson repeats. She can’t feel her feet anymore, but she’s more hurt by how Tasha’s trying to take all the blame for what happened. “Hey, breathe with me.”

“I can’t even  _ see _ you anymore,” Tasha whimpers.

“I’m right here,” Patterson says. “I promise.”

“We’re… we’re stuck,” Tasha says. “I’m... I don’t know how to help.”

Something under Patterson’s leg shifts and pain shoots up through her spine. She tries not to move and feels glad Tasha can’t see her face any longer. “Breathe with me, Tasha,” Patterson says. “Listen - in… and out.”

She takes her own deep breath and ignores the way it causes everything in her to throb. “In… and out,” she repeats.

“Patterson - this was all my fault,” Tasha sobs. “I didn’t… I didn’t know what was going to happen.”

“We’re going to be okay,” Patterson says. “Keep breathing with me. You’re right here and I’m right here.”

She squeezes Tasha’s hand and can feel how Tasha’s shaking. “Shh, Tasha - it’s okay. Take a deep breath.”

The debris under Patterson’s foot shifts again and she clenches her eyes shut, trying not to send any indications of pain through her hand grip with Tasha. “Listen… let’s do a back and forth, okay? I’ll start, and you help me.”

Patterson summons a deep breath from somewhere and forces out words: “There’s… antimony, arsenic, aluminum…”

She squeezes Tasha’s hand, letting her know it’s her turn.

“... selenium,” Tasha gasps out.

“Good, good,” Patterson says reassuringly. “And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and…”

“Rhenium.”

“That’s it. Keep going. And nickel, neodynium, neptunium, germanium…”

“And iron, ame… ame…”

“Americium, ruthenium…”

“Uranium.” Tasha’s hand shifts in Patterson’s and she feels Tasha’s head come down onto their joined fingers.

“Good job, Tash,” Patterson whispers. She’s getting very tired. “Keep going.”

“Europrium… zirconium…” Tasha says, the sobs slowing. “... lutetium, vanadium…”

“And lanthanum,” Patterson manages to say. “You’re… you’re doing… really good.”

She swallows. Her mouth tastes like blood. “Tasha, I’m just going… to close my eyes,” she whispers. “I’m right… right here. Keep… keep singing.”

“... and osmium, and astatine, and radium,” Tasha says, her voice getting stronger, and that’s the last Patterson hears. She slips into darkness with Tasha’s grip held tightly in hers, with Tasha’s voice being the thing that’ll carry her back - whenever she comes back.


End file.
